


No Grave Can Hold My Body Down

by PinkGold



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Eleventh is a good bro, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Hurt Jack, Immortal Ianto Jones, M/M, TARDIS saves the day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22087552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkGold/pseuds/PinkGold
Summary: He sat on the edge of the building, legs dangling out in the air as he watched the black clouds moving fastly over his head and towards the sea. The waves were tame tonight, they usually were this time of the year. A couple of people were walking the plaza, going home from late work shifts, probably. But Cardiff was at peace.If the same could be said for him, he sighed.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 4
Kudos: 89





	No Grave Can Hold My Body Down

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! It's been a while since I've last written for the Torchwood fandom, but here is a lil fic for a prompt over tumblr! <3  
> Hope you enjoy <3  
> ([here's the tumblr version](https://sparkly-angell.tumblr.com/post/190019497992/prompts-you-says-i-saw-you-wrote-for))

Wales Millennium Centre had a different aspect at night. Maybe because when its huge words shone in the dark sky, it looked like a lighthouse from the sea. A flatter, smaller and golder version.

But if it was a beacon of light, that would make Jack the lost boat.

He sat on the edge of the building, legs dangling out in the air as he watched the black clouds moving fastly over his head and towards the sea. The waves were tame tonight, they usually were this time of the year. A couple of people were walking the plaza, going home from late work shifts, probably. But Cardiff was at peace. 

If the same could be said for him, he sighed.

“Ah! There you are, Jackie boy!” a man said hurriedly behind him, startling Jack to his core. He turned and instantly frowned, as he watched a clumsy englishman climb the building with visible difficulty.

From the bowtie to the bad fitting suit jacket and the messy hair, it was pretty easy to tell who was approaching, but what really gave away was those sad, old eyes, once the man was face to face with him. Jack hadn’t personally met  _ this _ version of the legend yet, but there’s always a first time. 

“Doctor! Good to see you!” he smiled, finding it harder to maintain the smile than normally. And it was, good to see him, that is. He’d missed the Doctor. Really. Just maybe not today.

“Come, I need your help. There’s a time and space fluctuation happening in the 27th century here at Cardiff and I thought, who best to deal with the rift than the person who’s been dealing over thousands of years? So, really, I thought it would take me half a decade to find you but here you are, at the  _ first  _ place I look for. What a lucky day.” The Doctor’ rambling stopped and he stood behind Jack, looking ready to jump the way he came from, but sticking an arm for him, a silent invitation for this and more adventures.

Jack’s heart fell heavily. In any other day he would have taken the Doctor’s hand and let him fly them away from one planet to another. In any other day he would be making lewd jokes and flirting nonstop with the time lord.

In any other day…

“Can it wait?” he asked, watching a street lamp flickering near the old torchwood entrance.

“ _ Can it wait? _ Oh my God, you are not serious, are you?!” Jack didn’t need to turn around to see the Doctor throwing his arms up in exasperation. “Pshh,  _ can it wait-- _ Of course it can’t wait! It’s happening! Right now!”

Jack chuckled. 

“What’s so funny?” he gave up and grumply sat next to Jack.

“It’s funny ‘cause the thing you are so worried about won’t happen for millions of years.” Jack shook his head as a smile grew on his face. “Sometimes I wonder you say something is urgent so you can continue running. You convince people of its urgency and you run, run, run, until you win. But there’s no resting, right? There’s no sitting in the edge of a building, looking down at the waves, admiring how peaceful things are, ‘cause then,  _ ooh no _ , then you have to think, and thinking… thinking is never an option.”

“Well,  _ someone’s  _ grumpy today.” The Doctor mumbled, kicking his legs in the air childishly.

A heavy silence fell over them, and Jack watched his words being taken away through the wind. A few seagulls flew towards the harbor, beating gently their wings in the air.

“You know, I feel like you are talking more to yourself than to me, Jack.” the Doctor sobered up at a snap of a finger, voice all soft to dampen the truth, and Jack would have been shocked if he hadn’t already met his two previous versions. “Who was it, this time?”

“It’s not a  _ this time _ situation.” he snapped, fingers curling around the copper edges of the building’s roof. Jack took a long breath. This was no way the Doctor’s fault. “It’s an anniversary.” 

“Oh? What are we celebrating?” he chirped.

“Ianto’s death.” there’s no reason to beat around the bush. Not today anyway.

When the Doctor looked at him with no recognition in his eyes, Jack slumped his shoulders.

“Remember 2010, when you found me drinking alone in a spaceshift bar?”

“I gave you Alonso’s number, yes.” Doctor’s face turned sad all of a sudden. Jack nodded.

“Ianto had just died.” Jack looked at the sky, catching a few glimpses of light from the stars behind the clouds. “I ran away. It’s the first time I’m back since his death. Five years without saying a proper goodbye.

“I don’t think you two ever met,” Jack snorted, now that he was talking, he wouldn’t stop. “he knew almost everything about you, though. I told him. Ianto was our coffee guy, assistant of shorts, well-” Jack smiled, more genuinely this time, remembering Ianto’s antics, “he did hide his cyber girlfriend in our basement once.” he ignored the Doctor’s choking sounds and continued. “But he was good. Too good. Very gentle, too.” The Doctor hummed.

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

Jack nodded, trying to work his way around the knot in his throat.

“More than that, Doctor.” his eyes stung. “I love everyone I meet, you know that. I love Rose, I love you, Martha… all my colleagues. I never thought there was more than that. But when I think of Ianto… I see us setting in together, creating a home, growing old. He’s… no, he  _ was _ the one.”

The Doctor pondered something quietly for a moment before he got up and clapped his hands together, with an air of finality.

“Well, then I believe you should really be coming with me.”

“Doctor… just leave me. Come again tomorrow.” he avoided the Doctor’s hand when it tried to touch his shoulder.

“I might have a way of bringing Ianto back, Jack.”

-

Long story short, the Doctor did end up taking him to the 27th century after all, even if begrudgingly. Jack had forgotten how much he hated his century, but good thing they only had to focus on the rift.

“We just got to connect this cables from the TARDIS core into the Torchwood main frame and  _ voilà!”  _ The Doctor said as he opened the doors to the old Torchwood hub, that still looked exactly like it did last time around, except from the havoc being caused by the rift breaking apart.

Jack helped him set the cables with much difficulty. Every step into what felt like a hurricane was strenuous, his legs ached, burned with every movement, until he got to the mainframe. Connecting the cables were the easy part, which really was a blessing. 

“Doctor,” Jack said over their linked con, “it’s all set, you should be able to work your magic.”

“Wonderful!” Jack hissed at the high pitch the Doctor let out. “Come along. I need you here.”

Jack mentally cursed the Doctor for making him cross the mess the hub was twice, but when he entered the TARDIS all thoughts were forgotten. The Doctor was running around the console in a maddening pace, mumbling a few explanations unders his breath.

“What can I do to help?” Jack caught the Doctor’s attention then.

“Finally!” He sprinted over to him and lead him to sit on the benches. “You sit here,” the time lord said as he hooked a few electrodes on Jack’s forehead, “and just think of Ianto, you hear me? Think of that last time you saw him, the date and time specifically, oh-- and the place.”

Jack nodded, set to get to the task. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander, remembering Ianto’s trembling hands over his as a couple of tears fell on his cheeks. Jack’s heart squeezed. He had been trying to forget for the last half a decade, but now all the memories seemed to run free, washing over him ruthlessly.

Every time Ianto smiled, or rolled his eyes. His stupid comebacks and sweet,  _ oh so _ sweet lips. His cute crumpled face when he opened his eyes first thing in the morning, or how he loved to cuddle, held tight under Jack’s arms. Jack missed his button nose and his stupid soft belly.

He missed being taken care of, being loved, his caresses, his assertion and attention. He loved Ianto and wanted-- _ needed _ him back.

“Just a few more seconds!” the Doctor screamed somewhere in the middle of the mess, and Jack focused again on that terrible day, feeling Ianto’s silky hair under his palm as he hugged him close, pretending for a few moments he wouldn’t die, that all was going to be alright.

The main console exploded, sparks flying everywhere, but that didn’t stop the Doctor for getting the job done. With one last push on a few buttons, everything went silent. Jack opened his eyes, focusing on the Doctor’s fast breathing as he looked eyes widen to the floor in front of him.

His heart stopped when his eyes drifted downwards and he promptly lifted from his seat, kneeling down in front of the limp body.

“Ianto!” Jack’s hands flew over his chest, clumsy opening his tie and the top buttons from his shirt. No sign of him waking up. “Doctor, Ianto was killed by a poisonous gas those aliens threw at us. I think it’s still in his system.”

The Doctor let out a series of curses under his breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me that  _ before?” _ he ran downstairs and fumbled with a few boxes before he found what he was looking for. In what felt like two steps, he was by Jack’s side, giving him a flask. “Make him smell this. It’s an air purifier, easily finds and kills whatever is making his body shut down.”

Jack nodded and opened the flask over Ianto’s nose. After a few seconds when nothing seemed to happen, Jack pressed the flask closer still.

“Come on, Ianto, wake up.” his voice cracked slightly as his eyes burned. He couldn’t lose Ianto again, not when he had everything to save him. 

A strong hand rested on his shoulder, and Jack stifled a sob. This couldn’t be happening.

“Let’s take him to a guest room, Jack. He needs to rest.” 

“Does it mean he’ll survive?” he looked up hopefully at the Doctor. Normally, he would be the one doing the comforting, but  _ normally _ he wasn’t desperately trying to revive a lover. No, not any lover,  _ Ianto. _

The Doctor hesitated, and Jack’s hope left him like a punch to his guts instantly. The stinging in his eyes morphed into tears which ruined Ianto’s beautiful dark suit. His shoulders shook silently as he rested his head over Ianto’s unmoving chest.

“Wake up, Ianto, please.”

-

When he opened his eyes, Ianto was very aware of his unfamiliar surroundings. He jolted out of bed, instinctively searching for his gun on his waist, not really surprised that his holster was empty. With trained eyes, he scanned the the room for anything that looked threatening, and was confused to find nothing strange.

His suspicious only grew when he tried to open the door, which opened swiftly with no struggle. So maybe he wasn’t in a hostage situation as he first thought. Damn his Torchwood training, always teaching to wait for the worst.

Once outside his room, as he took in the alien-ish designs of the corridors, he realized he might not be on Earth anymore. Ianto gulped and didn’t let that new piece of information get to him, at least not for now.

He heard a set of murmurs coming from his right, and decided the best way to find out where he was, was by finding out who had him, hostage or not. Little by little the corridor morphed from the frigid light tech blue to a warm orange, until he was confronted with a significant console room.

If it could be called a console room. 

He carefully climbed the glass stairs to the main floor, where the alien console laid in the middle, but froze when he saw two people standing with their backs to him behind the alien tech. One of them, the taller, slender one stiffened for only a second, but he knew the man had noticed Ianto approaching.

The other one hadn’t yet. He had his head down, short hair spiking in every direction as he murmured something. He sounded sad, even if Ianto couldn’t catch what he said.

The taller man nodded, flicked his eyes in Ianto’s direction and winked conspirationaly when their eyes met. Ianto froze as he watched him whispering something into the sad man’s years before taking a few steps back. There was something in the sad man that was familiar, Ianto realized, his neck, maybe, the hair too.

Sad man straightened his back, suddenly aware, and recognition flashed in Ianto’s mind.

“Jack!” he shouted, sprinting in his direction just in time to see him turning, wishful expression in face. It quickly morphed into something more heartwarming.

Ianto latched his hands behind Jack’s neck as his lover cupped both his hand on his cheeks, bringing their foreheads together. They swung in place, synching their movements as their breathed in the same air again, in what felt like an eternity.

“I thought you had died.” Jack whispered, voice raw with emotions. Ianto closed his eyes and nodded. 

“I thought so, too.”

He smiled then, by each second that passed he felt more alive, stronger than before. He leaned in and captured Jack’s lips, erasing from their memories the last kiss they shared, when Ianto’s lungs were giving out, and his face too cold and lips too dry.

A few tears got mixed into their kiss, and frankly he couldn’t tell who they were from. They broke apart when the tall man cleaned his throat.

“Very well, hi, Ianto, I’m the Doctor. Nice to meet you.” he stretched out a hand, which Ianto shook, if a little confused. “You are welcome, by the way. I saved you,  _ well, _ we both did, so you’ve got to thank Jack properly later.” The Doctor smiled through his rambling and Ianto snorted. If Jack hadn’t told him the Doctor was prone to talk a mile per hour he would have been overwhelmed, “Oh, by the way, Jack, Ianto, something I forgot to mention before. Ianto is now a child from the TARDIS, which means, theoretically, his lifespan is indefinite. That’s my present to you, Jack.”

Ianto’s mouth fell open. Was he hearing it right? He was immortal now? He quickly glanced at Jack, afraid the man would find this new discovery horrifying, but the look in his face told a different story.

He had a genuine smile on his lips, and his eyes shone with gratitude, he turned to Ianto and interlaced their fingers. When he spoke, his voice trembled.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

**Author's Note:**

> So? How was it? Lemme know what you think! Thank you!  
> You can always prompt me over my tumblrs @sparkly-angell and @pinkgold-angel <3


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